Pandora -- A way to Happiness

I know that for many people Pandora is old news. I've always thought it was a neat idea, but for some reason I only recently started using it regularly. Now that I use it, I think it's great!

For those that don't know, it's an internet radio website that will create a station for you based on your preferences. The people who run the website listen to music and characterize it (supposedly by "400 distinct characteristics"), and those characteristics are used to determine what music you might like based on what songs you've marked as "good" in the past. This is done from radio station to radio station, so you can mark that you don't like a song for a specific station you've created, but it could still show up on a different station.

One of the reasons I love Pandora is that I can create a station based on a single song I love, and then it'll play other songs it thinks are similar. If I don't think the song is good, I mark is negatively, and it readjusts. Since my music tastes are very varied, this is a great way to find new artists I like with little effort. I've already bought a few songs from iTunes that I found on Pandora! Not to mention that I've discovered the names and artists of songs I've heard before and liked, but never could have easily found.

The only downside is that they only have but so much music. There have been a few songs I really wanted to use as the seed to create a station that they didn't have. There is also a newer band I love that I wanted to use as a seed to see what other artists are similar to them, but they didn't have them either. However, all of the other stations have been great, I was even able to make one based on a song by a Japanese artist!

If you've never tried Pandora, you should check it out. If you already use it, please share your username so that we can share stations! I'd love to see what types of stations you guys are making (what few of you there are). You can see my Pandora profile here, my username is vtmegan.

Happy Listening!